Nations try to outdo each other in spearheading advances in science, engineering and technology, harvesting the fruits from active research and development work through commercialization and encouraging industry and commerce to embrace advanced technology. Despite laudable efforts by the Malaysian government in encouraging and facilitating R&D, university-industry interaction, provision of venture
capitals and tax breaks, remains unable to get to the top rank of world economies. None of our many universities managed to get into the top 100 ranking. Malaysia has yet to be known for its innovations and inventions. Our national economy is still too dependent on regular production and manufacturing and income from commodities. Less than 15% of our more than 100,000 engineers are registered professionally and much less are actively involved in advanced design or research. A large number of our engineers are either involved in regular production, manufacturing or construction, or in administration or have left the profession completely for greener pastures in banking and commerce. A significant number are in our universities with very little contact with the engineering world outside the university campus. Our new breed of practical oriented engineers or engineering technologists is currently unsure of its professional status. And many of our over 200,000 technicians have been traditionally neglected professionally. MySET was established with the noble intention of reaching out to the large number of engineers, engineering technologists and technicians who are not professionally networked. MySET believes in a close cooperation between members of the engineering team. MySET believes even technicians can be professionals in their own right. And in this largely multidisciplinary world, MySET welcomes allied professionals such as architects, quantity surveyors and those in IT. MySET aims to elevate its members to a level that they can perform well at the international arena, through its professional development programmes, professional networking, professional examinations and international professional benchmarking. Time has come for us to be able to compete with professionals from the more established economies, so that one day a client from the middle-east for example, can look forward to professional consultants and contractors from Malaysia to compete with those from more advanced countries and bid confidently for jobs in their countries. God willing, MySET shall nurture these 21st century professionals. Megat Johari Megat Mohd Noor
President
Malaysian Society for Engineering & Technology
